Love and Death

Love and Death

“Love and death share a common root. The best love stories end in death, and this is no accident. Love is, of course, and remains the triumph over death, but that is not because it abolishes death but because it is itself death.”[1]

Most regular Life Notes readers know my wife, Carrie, passed away in June after a lengthy encounter with brain cancer. The experience of losing someone we love, while painful, is not unique to me as thousands go through similar experiences every day. What I wish to share are some still-developing thoughts, five months on, triggered by my experience. My intent is two-fold: I hope others going through or having gone through a similar experience will find some comfort in hearing from a kindred spirit, and I hope to explore more deeply some of my own observations as I continue life without Carrie.

Carrie was a wonderful, caring person, as everyone who knew her will attest. I was fortunate that she married me (as everyone who knows me will attest). What I find most interesting about my post-Carrie days is not how much I miss Carrie, the person, but how much I miss our marriage. We built a life together that was unfathomable to either of us when we began. Nor was that life uniquely hers or mine. Rather, it was the product of our union. I look at our children, our friends, and our home, after nearly 38 years together, and I find very little that screams “Greg!” or “Carrie!” Rather, it reeks of the two of us together.

All of which is to say that when we married in 1987, a third entity came into being. It was not obvious at first, but decades later nothing is more apparent. Our third entity was like a new-born that required time and attention to establish its own identity. Some authors refer to this product of the merging of individual energies in loving union as an abler soul. It is not specifically embodied but makes itself known through the embodied presence and behaviors of its creators.

Lest I sound like a braggart let me make clear my belief that a third entity, or abler soul, is created in all committed, long-term relationships. I think the nature of the abler soul we mutually produce is determined by how fully each person surrenders or contributes to the building of the entity. For example, if a tornado were to blow through my neighborhood (perhaps not as outlandish of an analogy as one might think) and merge my household contents with that of a neighbor, the resulting mess would more resemble me if my home took a direct hit and my neighbor’s home was only glanced. In other words, I contributed more to the result. Had my neighbor kept her or his belongings locked in a storm cellar, their contribution would be negligible. Similarly, if one partner dominates the relationship, its abler soul will resemble the dominant partner more than would a merging of equals.

As I reflect on Carrie’s passing and how my life has changed, I largely reflect on how our abler soul and my participation in and influence over it has changed. What was once ours is now mine in spite of its still-strong resemblance to what was distinctly ours. In traditional marriage vows, couples promise to remain faithful to each other until death do us part. So when one person dies and the physical marriage dissolves, what remains other than memories and stuff? This is where it gets interesting, at least for me and at least so far, because I still feel the overwhelming presence of the abler soul that was Carrie and me. And that presence both deepens and lessens my grief.

Hungarian Jesuit monk, Ladislaus Boros, wrote that love and death share a common root, and that love is death. In the context of the abler soul and each partner’s contribution to it, the more surrendered to the union a partner becomes, the greater their influence on the abler soul. As two partners allow more of their individual natures to die in support of the relationship, the more representative of the two become one the third entity will be. It also likely results in a lessened sense of individual identity when the union dissolves. Indeed, I often wonder who I am now without Carrie.

That there is something unseen, something spiritual, formed from the union of two souls should not surprise anyone. Everything that manifests physically is a reflection of something that is already present in the spiritual realm. And this is what I feel I may be experiencing now: the perpetuation of the abler body in spite of the dissolution of the physical relationship. I miss Carrie’s physical presence, but the abler body from our union feels as present as ever.

Author’s note: for the next two weeks I will share a few thoughts that have arisen in the time leading up to and since the passing of my wife, Carrie, in June 2025. Beginning on Thanksgiving Day I will publish a daily series of Christmas Meditations that will continue through Epiphany, or January 6, 2026. Engage with me or explore contemplative spiritual direction at ghildenbrand@outlook.com.

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[1] Ladislaus Boros, The Mystery of Death, New York, Seabury Press, 1963, p. 47.